Childhood: Developmental Psychology – Article overview (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM)
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Evolution refers to the process of change in gene frequencies within populations over many generations. The major principle of evolution is reproductive fitness, which refers to the likelihood that an individual will produce offspring or that that individual’s offspring will produce offspring. Evolution provides an explanation for how a mechanism developed but also why it developed. Previously adaptive mechanisms may not be adaptive anymore in modern society.
Evolutionary developmental psychology refers to a field which looks at development of humans from an evolutionary perspective. It is useful to look at which cognitive operations underlie adaptive behaviour. Psychological mechanisms (e.g. cognitive psychology) may be the missing link between evolution and behaviour.
It is possible that domain-specific mechanisms designed by natural selection to deal with specific aspects of the physical or social environment (e.g. face recognition) evolved. However, evolution has also influenced domain-general mechanisms (e.g. executive functions). There are three types of constraints on learning:
These constraints indicate that people are prepared by natural selection to process some information more readily than other. Evolved probabilistic cognitive mechanisms refer to information-processing mechanisms that have evolved to solve recurrent problems faced by ancestral populations but they are expressed in a probabilistic fashion in each individual in a generation. This means that it will develop in a species-typical manner if the individual experiences a species-typical environment but if not, development will be different (e.g. people are not innately afraid of snakes but are ready to develop a fear of snakes if the environment gives reason for this).
According to Geary, the mind is a set of hierarchically organized domain-specific modules that develop as children engage their physical and social worlds. Though people have domain-specific modules, human cognition is adaptive to local conditions. Development fine tunes the modules that are very flexible and broad.
The long period of youth in children may be necessary or children to master complexities of human societies and technologies. This means that cognition needs to be adapted to a wide range of environments. There are biologically primary abilities (e.g. language):
There are also biologically secondary abilities (e.g. reading):
Neuroconstructivism states that evolved learning abilities interact with a structured, expected environment to produce species-typical patterns of cognitive growth.
Epigenesis states that individual development is characterized by an increase in novelty and complexity of organization over time. Genes are expressed as a result of the environment and the genes, in turn, influence the environment which influences gene expression. Experience has influence on the cellular level. As a result of epigenesis, it is necessary to take the relationship between the individual and the environment into account.
The developmental systems approach states that new structures and functions emerge during development as a result of self-organization through the bidirectional interactions of elements at various levels of organization (e.g. genes, environment). The relationship between genes and the environment is what leads to development and the interaction between these two is of prime interest.
Genes are expressed differently in different environments. However, people still develop in a species-typical way because there is also a species-typical environment. Both species-typical genes and species-typical environments contribute to species-typical development and behaviours seen as ‘instinctive’.
The timing of a particular event can influence what effect that event will have on development. The sensitive period (i.e. critical period) refers to the period in development when a particular skill (e.g. language) is most easily acquired. Both the presence and absence of experience can play a big role in a sensitive period (e.g. absence of fine-tuned perceptual system prevents sensory overload which leads to a better understanding of the world). A poor functioning in one sensory system might permit another sensory system to develop without undue competition for resources. This means that premature stimulation of a sensory system may be adverse for the development of that or another sensory system. Timing of exposure to events may be responsible for species-typical patterns of brain and cognitive development and this may be what is inherited (i.e. instinctive behaviour).
Behavioural genetics studies the genetic effects on behaviour and complex psychological characteristics (e.g. intelligence). The gene -> environment theory states that one’s genotype influences which environments one encounters and the type of experience one has. This means that genes drive experience (e.g. genetic make-up determines how one organizes the world).
A child’s phenotype is influenced by the genotype and the environment. A parent’s genotype influences the child’s genotype but also the environment (e.g. the parent’s genetic characteristics affect the type of environments they are most likely to encounter in life).
There are three types of genotype -> environment effects:
High-density event-related potentials are a form of EEG that permits detailed recoding of brain activity when people solve cognitive tasks or are presented with specific stimuli. PET and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) use radioactive material to reflect brain activity.
Electrical and chemical signals are transmitted from a neuron. The axon is the projection away from the cell body of the neuron. This carries messages to other cell bodies. Dendrites receive messages from other cells and transfer them to the cell body. Between the dendrite and the axon, there is a synapse. Here, messages are transmitted by releasing neurotransmitters. The condition at the synapse affect the transmission of the messages among neurons.
Myelinated axons fire more rapidly (1), have lower thresholds of sensitivity to stimulation (2) and have greater functional specificity (3). The process of myelination increases throughout childhood and adolescence. This proceeds at different rates for different areas of the brain.
Neurons go through three stages of development:
Faulty migration of neurons has been associated with disorders (e.g. epilepsy). Synaptogenesis is rapid during the early years of life. There are more synapses in a child’s brain compared to an adult brain. The number of synapses reduce as a result of experience pruning (i.e. selective cell death; apoptosis). Synaptogenesis and apoptosis occurs at different rates for different parts of the brain.
The process of rapid development followed by decline occurs in multiple areas of brain development (e.g. brain metabolism). Developmental changes in the presence of neurotransmitters also occurs.
The hypermetabolism of the brain may be necessary for the rapid learning of that time. The increase in the number of neurons and synapses compared to adults may also allow for more brain plasticity. However, the failure of selective pruning is associated with disorders (e.g. schizophrenia).
In children with a higher IQ, there is an acceleration of cortical growth and an accelerated thinning in adolescence.
There is a reciprocal relationship between brain and behavioural development. Specific experiences may produce neural activity which determines which of the excess synapses will remain. Experience-expectant processes (i.e. experience-expectant synaptogenesis) refers to the processes whereby synapses are formed and maintained when an organism has species-typical experiences. Experience or lack of experience changes the structure and organization of the young brain.
Experience-dependent processes (i.e. experience-dependent synaptogenesis) refers to processes in which connections among neurons are made after the unique experiences (i.e. non-species typical experience) of an individual rather than a species-typical experience.
The corpus callosum connects the two hemispheres of the brain. The prefrontal lobes may be important in inhibiting behavioural responses and could explain the A-not-B error. In adolescence, a mismatch in maturation may occur where the amygdala and limbic system reaches adult levels before the prefrontal cortex. This may partially explain adolescent behaviour. This behaviour may be adaptive in establishing independence of the parents.
Plasticity refers to the ability to change. There is barely any plasticity in the production of new neurons in the cerebral cortex. New synaptic connections can be formed throughout life. Synaptic plasticity is greatest in infancy. Losing plasticity can lead to neurons dedicating themselves to one goal. This leads to greater efficiency of processing.
The early plasticity view of brain damage states that brains of young children are highly plastic relative to adults. This means that these brains are better able to overcome the effects of brain damage. The Kennard effect states that a younger brain is more likely to recover normal function than an older brain. This effect does not hold for all types of brain damage. Very early brain damage (e.g. prenatal brain damage) often results in permanent neurological impairment.
Recovery depends on injury factors (1), age factors (2), environmental factors (3) and the type of rehabilitation (4). Recovery is often greater when a more general cognitive function is damaged (e.g. executive function). Extended immaturity of the human nervous system allows for resilience (1), behavioural flexibility (2) and plasticity (3). Young children have a slower and more inefficient processing speed and this allows for better adaptation to later environments.
Interactive specialization models of brain development states that cortical development is a self-organizing process. There is a bidirectional interaction between brain structure and psychological function.
Evolution refers to the process of change in gene frequencies within populations over many generations. The major principle of evolution is reproductive fitness, which refers to the likelihood that an individual will produce offspring or that that individual’s offspring will produce offspring. Evolution provides an explanation for how a mechanism developed but also why it developed. Previously adaptive mechanisms may not be adaptive anymore in modern society.
Evolutionary developmental psychology refers to a field which looks at development of humans from an evolutionary perspective. It is useful to look at which cognitive operations underlie adaptive behaviour. Psychological mechanisms (e.g. cognitive psychology) may be the missing link between evolution and behaviour.
It is possible that domain-specific mechanisms designed by natural selection to deal with specific aspects of the physical or social environment (e.g. face recognition) evolved. However, evolution has also influenced domain-general mechanisms (e.g. executive functions). There are three types of constraints on learning:
These constraints indicate that people are prepared by natural selection to process some information more readily than other. Evolved probabilistic cognitive mechanisms refer to information-processing mechanisms that have evolved to solve recurrent problems faced by ancestral populations but they are expressed in a probabilistic fashion in each individual in a generation. This means that it will develop in a species-typical manner if the individual experiences a species-typical environment but if not, development will be different (e.g. people are not innately afraid of snakes but are ready to develop a fear of snakes if the environment gives reason for this).
According to Geary, the mind is a set of hierarchically organized domain-specific modules that develop as children engage their physical and social worlds. Though people have domain-specific modules, human cognition is adaptive to local conditions. Development fine tunes the modules that are very flexible and broad.
The long period of youth in children may be necessary or children to master complexities of human societies and technologies. This means that cognition needs to be adapted to a wide range of environments. There are biologically primary abilities (e.g. language):
Parenting practices refer to directly observable specific behaviours that parents use to socialize their children (e.g. supervision with homework). There are two broad dimensions of parenting:
It is possible that a combination of parenting practices impact child development rather than the practices or dimensions in isolation. Parenting style refers to a parent’s configuration of parenting dimensions and practices. Baumrind suggested three parenting styles:
Another typology of parenting styles was developed by Maccoby and Martin:
Authoritative parenting styles are associated with positive developmental outcomes while permissive and authoritarian styles were not. Outcomes for the children of neglectful parents were the poorest.
Children in two-parent households are influenced by the parenting style of both parents but also by the interaction of these styles (e.g. additive effect for two authoritative parents). By incorporating psychological control, several other parenting styles could be identified:
According to Jay Belsky’s process of parenting model, parenting is determined by characteristics of the parent, child and family social context. Parental personality and parental psychological functioning are important factors in the parental domain. In the child’s domain, a difficult temperament is important. In the social context domain, parents’ work habits, sources of parental social support and marital relationship quality are important.
Positive parenting refers to dimensions of parenting such as warmth, sensitivity, limit setting, appropriate scaffolding and contingency-based reinforcement. Negative parenting refers to behaviours that are inconsistent, over-reactive, controlling and harsh. Negative parenting has been linked to negative child outcomes (e.g. lower academic achievement) while positive parenting has been linked to adaptive child outcomes. Associations between parenting and child outcomes are stronger in early childhood. Adolescence may also be a critical period.
Fathers have taken up a larger parenting role over the recent years. Research shows that the parenting of fathers is subject to contextual influence and has a great impact on child outcomes.
According to Belsky, there are three primary predictors of parenting:
Cognition is about 50% - 70% heritable at the population level. Heritability is maximized when people choose their own environments and experiences.
Gene-environment correlation states that people with more similar genes experience more similar environments and vice versa. Transactional models state that early-life behaviours, driven by genetics, lead to a person selecting particular types of environments. These environments have a causal effect on cognition, leading to the notion that the original behaviours led to these experiences and this cognition (e.g. having higher IQ leads to environments where you can stimulate IQ, which leads to an even higher IQ). Traits such as intelligence, motivation and intellectual interest are important in selecting these environments. Genes are thus very important in selecting environments which, in turn, have large impact on cognition. This leads to a large estimate of heritability.
The availability of environmental experiences is essential in choosing one’s own environment. Differences in heritability between groups could thus demonstrate important underlying developmental processes. Heritability differs along age/development and socioeconomic advantage.
Heritability increases with age as people tend to select their own environments more and more. Children select experiences in line with their genetic predispositions and these experiences stimulate cognitive development. This means that the early genetic influences on cognition will become amplified. Another explanation for the increased heritability with age is that new genes become activated later in development (e.g. biological changes of puberty).
There may be lower heritability in children with lower SES. This may be because people with lower SES have less freedom to choose the most enriching experiences which, in turn, lead to more heritability. SES disadvantage may not disrupt gene-environmental transactions in countries that ensure high quality healthcare and education (e.g. Scandinavian countries).
Emotions may facilitate adaptation by readying behavioural responses (1), enhancing memory for important events (2) and guide interpersonal interactions (3). However, emotions are maladaptive when they are of the wrong type (1), at the wrong time (2) or at the wrong intensity level (3). Emotions consist of three key features:
The behavioural changes as a result of emotions are associated with autonomic and neuroendocrine changes that anticipate the associated behavioural response with an emotion.
The modal model of emotion states that emotion arises four steps:
Emotions can change the environment which, in turn, alters the probability of experiencing a certain emotion.
Emotion regulation refers to how one attempts to influence the emotions one has, when one experiences them, how one experiences them and how one expresses these emotions. Intrinsic emotion regulation refers to regulating one’s own emotions. Extrinsic emotion regulation refers to regulating the emotions of somebody else (e.g. regulating the emotions of a child). Emotions can be down-regulated (i.e. lower intensity of emotions) but also up-regulated (i.e. greater intensity of emotions).
Emotion regulatory acts may have their primary impact at different points in the emotion generative process. Each of the parts of the modal model of emotion may be influenced by emotion regulation. There are five points at which individuals can regulate emotions:
Executive function (EF) refers to the psychological processes involved in the conscious control of thought and action. However, there are several possible definitions:
It may be that executive function consists of separable but related constructs. It seems to consist of inhibition of prepotent responses (1), shifting between mental sets (i.e. flexibility) (2) and updating and monitoring of representations in working memory (3). However, by conducting a task which is aimed at a single construct of EF, it is unclear whether it taps into multiple component processes (e.g. does flexibility rely on inhibitory control or are they separate constructs).
Executive function has several developmental characteristics:
Luria states that the prefrontal cortex consists of interactive functional systems which involve the integration of subsystems. The subsystems have specific roles but cannot be considered outside of the larger systems. This means that executive function may be a function and not a mechanism or cognitive structure. Functions refer to behavioural constructs defined in terms of their outcome (e.g. what they accomplish). It is possible to organize functionally distinct phases around the constant outcome of solving a problem (i.e. the outcome of EF).
Intending refers to keeping a plan in mind to control behaviour. Rule use refers to translating a plan into action. After acting, evaluation occurs and this includes error detection and error correction. Representational inflexibility refers to the inability to form a new plan. Lack of response control refers to the inability to carry out a new plan.
Executive function draws on the prefrontal cortex but it is not the same. Damage to the PFC does not necessarily mean executive function impairment. The prefrontal cortex includes the orbitofrontal cortex (1), dorsomedial cortex (2), ventrolateral cortex (3), dorsolateral cortex (4) and rostrolateral prefrontal cortices (5).
The lateral prefrontal cortex may play an important role in the integration of sensory and mnemonic information and the regulation of intellectual function and action. It is connected to the thalamus (1), parts
.....read moreThere is a bi-directional influence between peer relationships and children’s disorders. Children’s problems with peers may contribute to the genesis of the disorder (e.g. anxiety) and the disorders may make peer contact more problematic.
Matching of negative emotion with another infant (e.g. making another infant cry in the nursery) is the first form of peer interaction. Variation in responsiveness to young peers may relate to general individual differences in emotionality and behavioural inhibition.
Infants start to smile at, reach towards and touch other infants by the second half of the first year of life. This behaviours develops simultaneously with peers and adults. Topic-related interactions between infant peers is a characteristic of the second year of life (e.g. direct peers’ attention to toys).
Contingent peer interactions (i.e. contingent responsiveness) refers to an interaction which resembles turn-taking and can be observed at 6 months. Infants are better at this when a toy is not present. One year olds are able to engage in cooperative games with their peers. This makes use of sustained interactions with mutual engagement (1), repetition of actions (2), alternating of turns (3) and playful quality (4). Other forms of prosocial behaviour (e.g. helping; sharing; comforting) emerge around the first birthday.
One year olds also have conflict with peers and use force to pursue their goals, next to being cooperative and prosocial. Most conflict regards the possession of toys or violation of personal space. Conflicts between young peers are characterized by communicative gestures and signs of social influence. Toddlers use hitting and grabbing. Grabbing tends to decrease over time while hitting remains stable. This may be a precursor for later aggression. Younger toddlers show more frequent, brief aggression and older toddlers show fewer but more sustained aggressive behaviours. This peaks around 30 months of age. Adult behaviour affects toddlers’ responses to conflict.
Infants are more likely to respond positively to unfamiliar peers than to unfamiliar adults. They also interact differently with unfamiliar peers compared to familiar peers. Preferences for playmates develop in toddlerhood as well as preferences for same sex peers.
There are individual differences in the quality of play with peers during the first few years of life. It is predicted by the social environment (1), experience with siblings (2), attachment figures (3) and other caregivers (4).
Stable individual differences in competence with peers emerge in the first years of life. Individual differences in aggression and externalizing problems emerge during toddlerhood. Socially inhibited behaviour in preschool settings is predicted by earlier patterns of inhibition with peers.
An infant’s ability to engage successfully in interaction with peers requires several skills:
Children and adolescents who are exposed to victimization face increased risk of diverse negative outcomes by early adulthood (e.g. psychopathology; lower educational and career attainment; inflammatory disease). It could lead to loneliness, which refers to psychological distress associated with perceived shortcomings in one’s social relationships. Individuals vary in their susceptibility to feeling lonely. The heritability of loneliness is 40%-50%.
The evolutionary model of loneliness states that humans are motivated to seek social connection as it confers a sense of safety. Being victimized is a sign that one’s safety is compromised and this could elicit a feeling that one’s social network is deficient and not fulfilling the desired functions.
Bullying has several characteristics:
With cyberbullying, there is no physical location (1), the identity of the perpetrator may not be known (2) and it may continue even if the victim removes oneself from the situation (3). It is associated with greater loneliness and other emotional problems.
Bullying may play an important role in the development of loneliness. Emotional maltreatment may disrupt the formation of secure attachments and this negatively shapes individuals’ perceptions of their relationships with others. This could have a negative effect on loneliness. Polyvictimization refers to the experience of multiple victimization of different types. This is a stronger predictor of negative outcomes.
People that are victimized may be more lonely but it is also possible that more lonely people get victimized more often. This may be due to traits and negative stereotypes associated with loneliness (e.g. shyness).
People who have been exposed to one form of severe victimization are lonelier than those who are not. People who have been exposed to multiple forms of victimization are even more lonely. People who have been victimized in both childhood and adolescence were lonelier than people who were victimized in one of these time periods.
Bullying is associated with loneliness regardless of pre-existing psychopathology or genetics (i.e. it also is the case for twins). Adolescent victimization is associated with greater feelings of loneliness and especially for severe maltreatment (1), sexual victimization (2) and neglect (3) regardless of childhood loneliness or victimization.
Severe physical or sexual abuse and bullying up to age 12 predicts feelings of loneliness at age 18. This is mainly the case for frequent bullying, regardless of loneliness in childhood. Lonely children are at increased risk of experiencing new instances of victimization during adolescence.
The loneliness that victimized adults in childhood and adolescence felt is partly explained by the presence of mental health problems and by genetic influences. This holds for all forms of victimization except for bullying.
In late childhood and early adolescence, feelings of loneliness are strongly related to an unfulfilled need to be accepted by
.....read moreA peer refers to two or more people who are operating at similar levels of behavioural complexity (e.g. two toddlers). This means that children who differ in age can be considered peer as long as they adjust their behaviour to suit one another’s capabilities as they pursue common interests or goals.
Conflict among peers when resources (e.g. toys) are scarce can help children learn how to resolve their differences in a positive way. This fosters the growth of prosocial conflict resolution (e.g. sharing). Hostile exchanges could create dominance hierarchies which minimizes the likelihood of future aggression within the peer group. Peer interaction may promote the development of adaptive patterns of social conduct.
Equal-status contacts (i.e. same age interactions) with peers are likely to contribute to the development of social competencies. This is more difficult to obtain with parents as parents are the more powerful interaction partner and this is not the case with same-age peers.
A mixed-age peer interaction refers to interactions among children who differ in age by a year or more. The asymmetry in this interaction (i.e. one child having more social competencies) could help children acquire certain social competencies. The presence of younger peers may foster the development of compassion (1), caregiving (2), prosocial inclinations (3), assertiveness (4) and leadership skills (5). Younger peers learn a variety of new skills from this interaction. Mixed-age peer interaction does not have the same influence as sibling contact as sibling status is determined by order of birth whereas peer status is more flexible.
Children tend to spend more time in mixed-age interactions than with same-age peers. As a result of gender segregation in childhood, boys form packs where competition is central (e.g. team sports; competitive games) whereas girls form pairs where a cooperative relationship is central.
Parents and peers each contribute something essential but different to a child’s social development. Regular contact with sensitive, responsive parents permits infants to acquire basic interactive skills and provides them with a sense of security. Contact with peers may allow children to elaborate their basic interactive routines and develop competent and adaptive patterns of social behaviour with those who are similar to them (i.e. peers). Peer rejection is a risk factor for negative outcomes (e.g. delinquency).
Harris claims that peers are more important as socialization agents than parents because parental influence is mainly genetic while peer influence is mainly environmental (e.g. parents react to individual differences in the child due to genetic differences rather than create these differences using parenting). However, parenting behaviour does matter.
Sociability refers to one’s willingness to interact with others and seek their attention or approval. 6-7 month old babies smile, vocalize and gesture to other infants. 10-month-old infants show simple social preferences. By 1 year, they start to imitate peers and between 12 and 18 months they start to react more appropriately to each other’s behaviour (e.g. turn taking). By 18 months of age, infants begin
.....read moreParent involvement in learning may be essential as parents provide the resources children depend on (1), children spend a substantial time outside of the school environment (2) and parents are a central relationship for children (3).
Parental involvement refers to parents’ commitment of resources to children’s learning. There is a distinction between parental involvement at school and at home. School-based involvement includes practices that require parents making contact with the school (e.g. attending school meetings). Home-based involvement refers to parents’ practices related to learning that take place outside of school (e.g. assisting children with homework; talking about academic issues). Home- and school-based involvement may be connected.
Parents’ expectations and values are not necessarily a sign of their commitment of resources to children’s learning. There is an association between expectations and values and children’s achievement and a link between parents’ involvement and children’s achievement. The magnitude of the association may depend on different forms of parental involvement. The association is not diminished when SES is taken into account. Parental practices can have negative effects (e.g. monitoring) or positive effects (e.g. direct assistance with homework). Parental involvement with homework may yield negative effects because this typically only occurs when a child experiences difficulty with achievement. However, parents tend to assist children who are having difficulty with homework and this improves how these children do in school.
The more involved parents are, the more children benefit over time in terms of their achievement. Highly involved parents in their children’s learning also tend to engage in other parenting practices which are beneficial for children’s achievement (e.g. autonomy support). It is possible that the influence of parents’ involvement accumulates over time so that small effects become large. Parental involvement may be more beneficial for children’s learning among families with children at risk for achievement problems (e.g. as a result of low SES).
Parental involvement may provide children with assets that allow them to achieve their full potential. There are several models through which parental involvement may lead to improved achievement:
Effective teachers are teachers who have a positive impact on students’ engagement in learning activities and the outcomes associated with students’ learning (e.g. self-regulation). Teachers operate in the atmosphere of the classroom (1), instruction (2) and management (3). Effective teaching encompasses all three domains. This means that an effective teacher is one who considers how the three domains interact and is able to respond to the teaching environment by implementing practices aligned with the four dimensions of effective teaching.
There are four dimensions of effective teaching:
Teachers’ knowledge and dispositions are reflected in their behaviour and are thus also important. However, this indirectly influences students’ outcomes but directly affect teachers’ skills.
Developing caring classroom communities requires eliciting desirable social and behavioural student outcomes (e.g. cooperation) by using affective mechanisms (e.g. praise) and behavioural mechanisms (e.g. procedures) to establish a safe place for students ’learning. Teachers establish classroom community and atmosphere early in the semester and tend to maintain this atmosphere. Positive classroom atmospheres provides students with emotional and academic support. To establish this, teachers need to be caring and fair (1), get to know students (2) and create an atmosphere of mutual respect and positive interpersonal relationships (3).
Teachers need to be emotional warm and teachers’ positive interactions with students provide support for building their social competencies. Students need to feel a sense of belonging in school settings to promote their academic achievement and social well-being. Allowing for student collaboration fosters students’ interest, engagement and autonomy. Monitoring without public punishment leads to more engaged students. Instructional talk allows for students to respond and this may foster autonomy.
Developing a classroom community can be done by monitoring behaviour rather than punishing (1), foster a classroom community (2) and establish a democratic classroom (3).
An effective teacher elicits desirable affective and cognitive responses from students about their academic work (e.g. being excited and engaged in learning) by using affective mechanisms (e.g. their own excitement) and cognitive mechanisms (e.g. having students make predictive inferences about a story) to enhance students’ motivation to learn.
Teachers with mastery-focused values and goals tend to
.....read moreContrary to most animals, humans communicate cooperatively. Infants (i.e. 10 to 12 months) begin in cooperative communication through the pointing gesture. This form of communication relies on their social-cognitive ability to direct the attention of others and to understand the attention-directing intentions of others.
Skills of intention-reading refer to social-cognitive abilities which are necessary to understand one’s intentions and which are foundational to all forms of human communication. Cognitive skills of pattern-finding refer to general cognitive processes of categorization, analogy, schema formation and distributional learning aimed at reconstructing the linguistic abstractions of a speech community to become productive and creative with the conventions of a language.
One theory of language acquisition is that children have innate knowledge of language (e.g. Chomsky) and these innate grammar structures constrain language development. Constructivist theories state that children acquire competence with a language mainly through cultural learning and other cognitive processes (e.g. categorization; analogy). In constructivist theories, children are biologically prepared for language but only in general ways (e.g. capacities for cultural learning).
An utterance refers to the smallest unit in which a person expresses a complete communicative intention (e.g. ‘give’). It is used to direct a recipient’s attention to something and to express a communicative motive (e.g. through an emotional expression). A child needs to understand the communicative intention of an utterance before the child can use it. Adults help this by stressing the word in a sentence. When a child does not understand the sub-functions of an utterance, the child will not be able to use it in different situations (e.g. novel situations).
Children learn words by attempting to understand utterances. To understand utterances, children often need to determine the functional role of a word. To learn a new word, children must extract it from a larger utterance and connect it to the relevant aspect of the current situation. Children learn the function of an utterance or word and this is how they begin to learn language.
A linguistic construction refers to a unit of language that comprises multiple linguistic elements used together for a relatively coherent communicative function. The elements also perform sub-functions. Constructions vary in their complexity depending on the number of elements and interrelations and they also vary in their abstractness. This makes that people know the general profile of an event in a sentence without knowing anything about individual content words (i.e. grammatical structure tells us who does what).
Holophrases refer to one-unit utterances with an intonational contour expressing communicative motive. Children begin speaking language by using holophrases. The initial schemas and constructions of children are very concrete and are organized around particular words and phrases instead of around abstract categories. The utterance-level constructions underlying children’s earliest multi-word utterances have three types:
Contrary to most animals, humans communicate cooperatively. Infants (i.e. 10 to 12 months) begin in cooperative communication through the pointing gesture. This form of communication relies on their social-cognitive ability to direct the attention of others and to understand the attention-directing intentions of others.
Skills of intention-reading refer to social-cognitive abilities which are necessary to understand one’s intentions and which are foundational to all forms of human communication. Cognitive skills of pattern-finding refer to general cognitive processes of categorization, analogy, schema formation and distributional learning aimed at reconstructing the linguistic abstractions of a speech community to become productive and creative with the conventions of a language.
One theory of language acquisition is that children have innate knowledge of language (e.g. Chomsky) and these innate grammar structures constrain language development. Constructivist theories state that children acquire competence with a language mainly through cultural learning and other cognitive processes (e.g. categorization; analogy). In constructivist theories, children are biologically prepared for language but only in general ways (e.g. capacities for cultural learning).
An utterance refers to the smallest unit in which a person expresses a complete communicative intention (e.g. ‘give’). It is used to direct a recipient’s attention to something and to express a communicative motive (e.g. through an emotional expression). A child needs to understand the communicative intention of an utterance before the child can use it. Adults help this by stressing the word in a sentence. When a child does not understand the sub-functions of an utterance, the child will not be able to use it in different situations (e.g. novel situations).
Children learn words by attempting to understand utterances. To understand utterances, children often need to determine the functional role of a word. To learn a new word, children must extract it from a larger utterance and connect it to the relevant aspect of the current situation. Children learn the function of an utterance or word and this is how they begin to learn language.
A linguistic construction refers to a unit of language that comprises multiple linguistic elements used together for a relatively coherent communicative function. The elements also perform sub-functions. Constructions vary in their complexity depending on the number of elements and interrelations and they also vary in their abstractness. This makes that people know the general profile of an event in a sentence without knowing anything about individual content words (i.e. grammatical structure tells us who does what).
Holophrases refer to one-unit utterances with an intonational contour expressing communicative motive. Children begin speaking language by using holophrases. The initial schemas and constructions of children are very concrete and are organized around particular words and phrases instead of around abstract categories. The utterance-level constructions underlying children’s earliest multi-word utterances have three types:
People do not have innate mechanisms for complex calculations (e.g. math). However, children typically do spontaneously come up with some form of counting without being explicitly taught. It may be that counting knowledge is innate but it is also possible that this develops through imitation and that children, while being able to count, do not know the meaning of these numbers.
At three and a half years of age, children know that the order in which one recites numerals is crucial. Young children are able to point out subtle counting errors (e.g. count something twice) and by four years of age, children have mastered the basics of how to count. Children do not know the meaning of counting until the end of their fourth year.
Children tend to come up with calculation algorithms without explicit instruction (e.g. adding numbers up using their fingers). Children initially have big difficulties in counting without their fingers and may explicitly state their process (i.e. name what they are doing), though this requires a lot of effort and concentration. The minimum strategy refers to starting an addition equation with the larger quantity and count a number of times equal to the smaller of the two numbers (e.g. 4 + 2 = four, five, six, six!). This strategy underlies most of children’s calculations before the onset of formal schooling. Children develop an intuitive understanding of commutativity (i.e. a+b=b+a) without any formal schooling. Between the ages of 4 and 7, children exhibit an intuitive understanding of what calculations mean and how they should best be selected.
Young adults rarely solve addition and multiplication problems by counting but retrieve results from a memorized table. Accessing this table takes longer as the operands get larger. This may be due to the accuracy of mental representations dropping with number size (1), order of acquisition influencing memory (2) and the amount of drilling (i.e. less training with larger number sizes because they are less common) (3). This means that memory plays a central role in adult mental arithmetic.
The multiplication table is more difficult to retain in memory because arithmetic factors are not arbitrary and independent of each other. Human memory is associative (i.e. it links events with each other). This permits the reconstruction of memories on the basis of fragmented information. It allows one to remember a lot with only a small piece of information (1), it allows one to take advantage of analogies (2) and it allows one to apply knowledge acquired under other circumstances to a novel situation (3). However, associative memory is a weakness when knowledge must be kept from interfering with each other. This means that when one wants to remember the answer to 7x5, all the associated arithmetic functions (e.g. 7x6) are also activated, making it more difficult to remember.
The automatization of arithmetic memory (e.g. seeing two numbers and automatically adding them up) starts at age seven. It is possible that children eventually
.....read morePrimates have been able to learn simple language. However, this may not actually be language use and comprehending as they do not use complex grammar (1), lack social-cognitive abilities that allow for language learning (2) and lack a theory of mind (3). Language may have co-evolved with social intelligence.
Language refers to the systematic and conventional use of sounds, signs or written symbols for the intention of communication or self-expression. Human language differs from the communication of other animals in three ways:
There are seven functions of language:
Language consists of phonology (1), morphology (2), syntax (3), semantics (4) and pragmatics (5).
Phonology refers to the sounds of a language. There are age-related changes in the tongue, mouth and the larynx which allow for producing sounds. There are several stages of phonological development:
Babbling consists of many non-repeated consonant-vowel patterns. Jargon babbling refers to strings of sound filled with a variety of intonations and rhythms to sound like meaningful speech. Speech production driven before 6 months of age is driven by internal forces rather than the environment. Babbling may have the function of socially relating to family members and it may reflect infants’ sensitivity to and production of patterns in the linguistic input. Phonemic awareness refers to the knowledge that words consists of separable sounds. This is important in proficient reading and phonemic awareness may improve by learning to read.
Morphology refers to the structure of words and to a system of rules for combining units of meaning into words (e.g. adding ‘ed’ to a word makes it past tense). A morpheme refers to the smallest unit of meaning in a language. Free morphemes can stand alone as words (e.g. fire; run). Bound morphemes cannot stand alone and are attached to free morphemes (e.g. the letter ‘s’). The mean length of utterance refers to the average number of morphemes a child uses in a sentence and is indicative of children’s linguistic development. Many of the morphemes children learn are word endings and they tend to show overregularization (i.e. overusing a rule; ‘s’ for every word that is plural).
The wug test
.....read moreIt is not clear what through what processes peer rejection lead to internalizing problems and how the teacher can be a protective factor in this. School-age children who experience difficulties in their relationships with peers are at increased risk for psychopathology. Social self-concept act as a mechanism through which peer rejection influences the development of internalizing problems.
The social self-concept refers to cognitive self-perceptions of one’s functioning in the social domain and this is negatively influenced by peer rejection. A poor self-concept is a cognitive vulnerability factor leading to the development of internalizing problems.
Teacher-student relationships are predictive of internalizing problems and self-perceptions. Supportive teacher-student relationships may compensate for the negative effect of peer rejection on children’s self-concept. This means that good teacher-student relationships could be a protective factor against the negative effect of peer rejection on one’s social self-concept.
Peer rejection predicts declines in social self-concept and this is negatively associated with internalizing problems. Impeded social self-concept is the mechanism through which peer rejection leads to internalizing problems. Disliked children may receive more negative treatment from peers and this negative feedback may be internalized over time.
Individual teacher support may have a protective factor, though this is not clear. Medium-high to high levels of teacher support protected children’s social self-concept against peer rejection but only at the end of the second grade. This means that teacher support can at least buffer the effects of peer problems on children’s self-concept. However, teachers are not able to alleviate the full burden of peer rejection.
It is possible that the link between maladaptive self-cognitions and internalizing outcomes becomes stronger with age as children’s cognitive abilities mature.
Self-concept of ability refers to the perception of one’s capability to successfully perform on academic tasks. This may explain academic achievement. It is possible that young children successfully perform various academic skills which develops a positive view on those skills, making it more likely that they engage with these skills and become proficient in them. A positive perception of skill could be increased by peer comparison and positive feedback.
When a student feels competent, this sense of ability may enhance one’s self-concept, allowing the student to persist at and seek out activities that further influence academic achievement. This means that a positive self-perception of abilities may promote academic achievement.
Early math achievement predicts later math achievement even when controlling or child characteristics, background and demographic variables and early reading achievement also predicts later math achievement.
Self-concept of ability in math between the ages 9 and 14 is related to later math achievement even when taking into account earlier math and reading achievement and other variables (e.g. demographics). Self-concept of ability in reading in middle childhood is not related to later math achievement. This association holds across the achievement spectrum (i.e. high- and low achievers).
Self-concept of ability in reading in middle school predicts later reading achievement even when taking into account earlier achievement and other variables. Self-concept of math does not predict reading achievement. This relationship holds across he achievement spectrum but there is a smaller association between reading self-concept and reading achievement when achievement is high compared to when achievement is lower.
Self-concept of ability plays an important role in motivating achievement over time and across achievement levels. It is possible that these beliefs playa stronger role for students not achieving at higher levels.
Early childhood adversity is common (i.e. 48% - 60%). Early life trauma impacts the developmental trajectory of children and health outcomes over the life course. No experiences with maltreatment and a non-depressed primary caregiver are associated with resilience. Adult health outcomes are influenced by the cumulative incidence of adverse life experiences. Differences in risk are influenced by chronicity (1), severity (2), contextual factors (3) an type of childhood traumas (4).
Resilience refers to good mental and physical health despite early adverse life events. This means that it includes a ability to withstand, adapt to and recover from adversities. It may buffer a child from adversity by reducing the impact of trauma (1), reducing negative chain reactions stemming from trauma (2) and it may enable opportunities for recovery (3).
Resilience results from the interplay between a child’s genetics (1), temperament (2), knowledge and skills (3), past experiences (4), social supports (5), cultural resources (6) and societal resources (7). High self-esteem (1), internal locus of control (2), external attributions of blame (3), optimism (4), determination in the face of adversity (5), cognitive flexibility (6), reappraisal ability (7), social competence (8) and the ability to face fears (9) are resilience factors.
There are five modifiable resilience factors:
Paediatric primary care could enhance resilience to childhood adversity. Barriers to the identification and treatment of trauma in paediatrics include a perceived lack of time (1), lack of training (2), lack of reimbursement (3) and a reluctance to
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